Odeo was co-founded in 2005 by Evan "Ev" Williams, and the startup was going sideways. About one year in, Odeo employees started building Twitter as a side project. The 140-character platform grew from there.

Most of Odeo/Twitter's earliest employees are no longer at the company. But we trawled through a list of the first 500 Twitter accounts ever created and found 14 early staffers who worked on the product. [Note: The first documented Twitter account begins at 12. Numbers one through 11 were likely test accounts].

One of the early Twitter employees, Crystal Taylor, is still at the company. Most of the others, including the founders, have moved on.

It's worth noting that just because these people all had early access to Twitter, it doesn't mean they'll all make fortunes when the company goes public. It's unclear who was given shares when Ev Williams bought Odeo back from investors and restructured Twitter as a new company in 2006.